Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 6.djvu/303

275 will send him back disappointed.” But I will put her off with fair words.’ So he said to her, ‘Take this dinar and appoint me a day other than this.’ ‘By the Mighty Name,’ answered she, ‘it may not be but thou shalt go home with me this very day and I will take thee to friend.’

So he followed her till she came to a house with a lofty porch and a padlock on the door and said to him, ‘Open this lock.’ ‘Where is the key?’ asked he. And she answered, ‘It is lost.’ Quoth he, ‘He who opens a lock without a key is a knave, whom it behoves the judge to punish, and I know not how to open doors without keys.’ With this she raised her veil and showed him her face, at which he took one look that cost him a thousand sighs. Then she let fall her veil on the lock and repeating over it the names of the mother of Moses, opened it without a key and entered. He followed her and saw swords and armour of steel hanging up; and she put off her veil and sat down with him. Quoth he to himself, ‘[Needs must thou] accomplish what God hath decreed to thee,’ and bent to her, to take a kiss of her cheek; but she covered it with her hand, saying, ‘This beseemeth not but by night.’ Then she brought a tray of food and wine, and they ate and drank; after which she rose and drawing water from the well, poured from the ewer over his hands, whilst he washed them.

Presently, she cried out and beat upon her breast, saying, ‘My husband had a signet ring of ruby, which was pledged to him for five hundred dinars, and I put it on; but it was too large for me, so I straitened it with wax, and when I let down the bucket into the water, the ring [must have] dropped into the well. So turn thy face to the door, whilst I put off my clothes and go down into the well and fetch it.’ Quoth Ali, ‘It were shame on me that thou shouldst go down into the well, whilst I am present; none shall do it but I.’ So saying, he put off his clothes